Bradley's Season Is Over, but Fight With Umpire Is Not

By ALAN SCHWARZ

Published: September 25, 2007

Baseball's playoff races have been influenced in bizarre manners over the years, from runners missing bases to black cats sauntering before dugouts. Add an event in San Diego on Sunday to the list: the Padres' Milton Bradley, while arguing with an umpire, got his legs tangled with his manager and sustained a season-ending knee injury.

Bradley, a key contributor to the Padres' run for a postseason berth, tore a ligament in his right knee during a fevered argument with Mike Winters, the first-base umpire in San Diego's game against Colorado. Bradley's knee appeared to buckle against the leg of Padres Manager Bud Black, who was trying to restrain him.

The Padres, who learned yesterday that Bradley would not play again this season and that another outfielder, Mike Cameron, has a torn ligament in his thumb, are now tied with Philadelphia in the National League wild-card race after their 9-4 loss to San Francisco last night. (San Diego, which acquired outfielder Jason Lane from the Astros for the final week of the regular season, is three games behind Arizona in the N.L. West.) A left fielder, Bradley was hitting .313 with 11 home runs and 30 runs batted in in the 42 games he had played since joining the club in June.

As the postseason landscape is potentially affected by Bradley's loss, his loss of temper and the reasons for it are being examined by Major League Baseball. The Padres' first-base coach, Bobby Meacham, said after the game that Bradley had been baited by Winters, calling Winters's words ''the most disconcerting conversation I have heard from an umpire to a player'' in Meacham's 26 years in baseball.

''There's no possible way a man is going to stand there and take what he said to Milton,'' Meacham told MLB.com. ''The boiling point is when he called Milton a name. Milton did not say anything to him to get him to do that.''

Bradley, who had flipped his bat in disgust after a called third strike to end the fifth inning, said that Winters told the home-plate umpire, Brian Runge, that he believed Bradley had flipped his bat at Runge. When Bradley reached first base in the eighth inning, he began jawing with Winters about that, much of it with his back turned toward Winters.

Meacham said that Winters then used a profane term to refer to Bradley, who became increasingly enraged. Meacham argued with Winters while Black tried to restrain Bradley, who soon collapsed from his knee injury and had to be carried off the field.

''If this costs me my season because of that, he needs to be reprimanded,'' Bradley told reporters, referring to Winters. ''I'm taking some action. I'm not going to stand pat and accept this because I didn't do nothing wrong.''

Bradley was not available for comment yesterday. Bruce Froemming, the second-base umpire and crew chief during Sunday's game, declined to comment when reached by telephone yesterday. Winters did not speak with reporters after Sunday's game.

M.L.B.'s vice president for umpiring, Mike Port, said in a telephone interview that his office had begun gathering information on the incident. ''As it is with any player-umpire matter or ejection, it is under review,'' he said. Port added that such reviews were generally completed within two days but declined further comment.

Bradley will presumably be subject to suspension by Major League Baseball when he returns to the field, probably sometime next season.

Sandy Alderson, the Padres' chief executive, was in charge of umpire relations and discipline while an executive at M.L.B. from 1998 through 2005, during the implementation of the controversial QuesTec computerized monitoring system as well as the umpires' disastrous mass resignation in 1999.

Alderson told The San Diego Union-Tribune after Sunday's game that he would consult with M.L.B. about whether Winters behaved improperly, and Padres General Manager Kevin Towers told reporters in San Francisco last night that Bradley had the support of the team.

Bradley, 29, has a history of on-field altercations, often with umpires, dating to his days in the minor leagues. Perhaps the most notorious came three years ago with the Los Angeles Dodgers. After a fan at Dodger Stadium had thrown a plastic bottle at him in right field, Bradley approached the fan, screamed expletives, slammed the bottle at the fan's feet and left the field only after goading the crowd into booing him more. Bradley apologized afterward and received counseling for anger management.

Ellis Burks, a former mentor of Bradley with the Cleveland Indians, said in a telephone interview yesterday that Bradley was ''a loner'' who usually only reacted to, rather than instigated, arguments.

''He's not a bad guy at all,'' said Burks, an 18-year major leaguer and now a special assistant to Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro. ''With Milton, if you don't bother him, he won't bother you.''